


A Toast to Summer

by Archetype_ElectraHeart



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, One Shot, singular slur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 13:52:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3531704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archetype_ElectraHeart/pseuds/Archetype_ElectraHeart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"It’s always summer in the songs. In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>A customer catches Brienne's attention one night; unbeknownst to her, the feeling is mutual.<br/>Or: life may not be like the songs, but it won't stop Jaime from trying to use those cliches to his advantage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Toast to Summer

It was not because he was beautiful.

Although he was, undeniably, with his spun-gold hair and emerald eyes—the kind that were only supposed to exist in stories, not set into the faces of actual people. If you froze out his movements and mannerisms, like in a photograph, he would look like a fairytale Prince Charming. But watching him, it became clear he was more than just a pretty boy.

She had outgrown those years ago. Boys like Renly with peach-fuzz beards and rosebud lips and cherub curls. Smiles like summer breezes, pleasant but inconstant. Lullaby soft creatures with saccharine kisses. The boys she envied, deep down inside. They had lost their appeal when she realized she didn’t want or need to be their kind of soft. That she did not need some other half to balance her out, and she could be both hard and sweet all on her own.

When the envy had dried up, so had her interest.

But this one--this one had a feral smile and a switchblade laugh. The kind of boy the stories always warned you about, the wolf that would lure you into the forest with silken growled promises and then swallow you whole.

Brienne edged closer to the other woman behind the bar. “Asha. You served that group of suits, right?” She nodded towards Prince Charming and the two other businessmen she assumed were his co-workers.

Asha glanced over at them and nodded. “Yeah, while you were busy with the bachelorette party. How many cosmos did you have to make, anyway?”

“Like nine. Next time they’ll ask for a round of sex on the beach or something else cringe-worthy, I’m sure. Do you know who the tall blonde is?”

“No, sorry. Prince Charming isn’t a regular and his friend paid in cash. Why?”

Brienne avoided Asha’s sharp gaze. “Um, he just seemed kind of familiar. I was trying to figure out if I might have met him before.”

A barked laugh. “Babygirl, I think you’d remember a face like that.”

Brienne gave a rueful smile and nodded. “You’re probably right.”

 

 

 

Prince Charming and his friends had been nursing the same round of beers for ages. In the meantime Brienne had had to make a round of screaming orgasms and Irish car bombs for the bachelorette party from hell, and if they remained in all their shrieking, cackling glory for much longer Brienne was going to have a splitting headache.

Asha patted her on the back as the latest round of crowing erupted from the corner. “You alright, B?”

Brienne resisted the urge to rub her temples and nodded. “Honestly, it would be fine if I wasn’t running on four hours of sleep. I had my Valyrian literature and Westerosi military history midterms back to back today.”

“And? How did they go?”

“Well, I think.”

Asha plonked two shot glasses onto the bar between them and poured half a shot of wildfyre in each. “In that case, a toast: in the song of your life…”

This was an old game for the two of them. “May your dragons be helpful, not homicidal.”

“May your maidens save themselves.”

“To summer.” They tapped their glasses together and tossed the shots back, mirrored grimaces on their faces.

“Fuck. I always forget how much I hate wildfyre shots until afterwards.”

“You’re the one who poured them.” Brienne took a gulp of water and passed the glass over to Asha.

“Don’t rub it in. I’m going to run in the back and grab some more glasses. Will you be alright on your own for five minutes?”

“No, I’m going to lay down and nap on the floor until you come back. Maybe set the entire establishment ablaze.” Brienne smiled at Asha’s annoyed glare. “Of course I’ll be fine. Go. Onwards.”

She had just started slicing more limes when Prince Charming approached. “Excuse me.”

She glanced up, registering the sharp white of his teeth and green glint of his eyes. “What can I get you?”

 

 

 

It wasn’t because she was beautiful.

Because she wasn’t. Not by any of the standards of beauty that Jaime saw splashed across magazine covers or television screens. Her skin was milky pale and covered with a heavy dusting of freckles, her blonde hair was choppy and wild, her nose large and crooked. She had to be over six feet tall, and her shoulders were as broad, if not broader, than his own. Her breasts were nearly nonexistent.

And yet.

She was strong. There was a grace in the way she moved, in the way the muscles in her arms tensed and relaxed as she wiped down the bar. Her smile was easy and genuine, and the grimace she had made after that shot had been as open and unstudied as facial expressions came. Even so, she had been polite to the bachelorette party from hell, despite all their screeching and pretentious pink cocktails, and not in a way that seemed forced or contrived. He had immediately volunteered to get a second round of drinks when the other bartender went into the back, jumping at the opportunity to hear her voice and study her up close. Despite her large hands, her fingers were nimble with a knife and he watched her slice limes at a rapid pace for a few seconds before speaking up.

"Excuse me."

And then he almost took it all back when she looked up.

She had the most impossible eyes. Big, clear, blue eyes that zeroed in on his face and nearly rendered him immobile. A blue that could only be described in a series of hackneyed cliches: ocean waves and summer skies and precious stones.

Coming closer may have been a mistake. A miscalculation. Her freckles were considerably more tempting up close than he could have predicted, and watching her hands as she worked… He had never felt this immediate fascination with a complete stranger before. But this girl—somehow innocent and open and strong and utterly unpretentious—she was like a breath of fresh air, no matter how trite the phrase felt in his brain.

"What can I get you?"

She had turned him into a walking lovesick fool from the songs without even trying.  

 

 

Jaime Lannister, who had never stepped foot in Pike Isle Pub before that Friday night, was suddenly a regular. Nearly every shift Brienne worked, he was there. Often with the dwarf she had learned was his brother, or the red-head she had learned was his cousin. Sometimes alone. One time he brought in a stuttering young boy with shaggy brown hair that Brienne had to card before serving. Asha had laughed and gave him a beer on the house when it turned out he was the same age as Brienne—down to the day.

“He sure has been coming in a lot.” Asha looked pointedly at Jaime Lannister where he sat at the bar, a mere five stools away.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Only comes in the shifts you work though.”

Brienne’s head whipped around in surprise before she could temper her reaction. “What?”

Asha was triumphant. “Oh, yeah. Didn’t you know? Came in on a Tuesday night once, asked after you. Theon told him you only work Wednesdays and Thursdays during the week. Friday nights, first shift on Sunday…”

Brienne turned to the bar and began polishing it furiously. “So?”

“So. Every week, he comes in either Wednesday or Thursday, every Friday night, and most Sunday afternoons. Not once on the days you don’t work.”

“Coincidence.”

“Don’t be daft. He’s staring at you as we speak.”

Brienne marshaled every ounce of willpower to keep her eyes on the glass she was cleaning.

If her eyes hadn’t been so single-mindedly focused down, she probably would have seen her least-favorite person enter the bar. She would have had time to make an excuse to go in the back. She could have struck up a conversation with another customer, Jaime Lannister being the most likely possibility. But no. She did not see, she had no warning, and so when someone sat down directly in front of her, she automatically put on her customer-service smile and looked up.

“Hi there, what I can I get you…” Her voice trailed off.

“Tarth! I cannot believe you work here. When Ambrose said he saw you in here last weekend, I thought he was making things up.”

She had also missed the presence of Edmund Ambrose apparently. No great loss there. “Hyle. What do you want to drink?”

“Gods, you are so uptight. You must be a terrible bartender. Do you scowl disapprovingly at everyone who orders?”

Brienne could sense Asha moving closer to her, Jaime’s gaze on her face. “Only at you, Hyle. What do you want?”

He set his elbows on the bar and leaned closer. She thought she could smell stale beer and sour whiskey and sweat coming off of him, wondered if he was somehow still drunk from last night’s frat party.

“Still bitter about that, Tarth? It was just a harmless prank.”

Asha spoke up from Brienne’s left, where she was filling a pint glass from one of the taps. “Hey buddy, can we get you something to drink? Because otherwise I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”

Hyle’s face twisted into a familiar scowl. Definitely still drunk. “Who’s this, Brienne? Your dyke girlfriend?”

Suddenly everything seemed to happen all at once.

Brienne felt herself grabbing the pint of beer out of Asha’s frozen hands and flinging it in Hyle’s face, even as Jaime Lannister sprang off of his stool and stalked over to Hyle, grabbing him by the shoulders. And then Hyle’s arm was twisted behind his back, beer dripping down his face as he sputtered like a landed fish, and Jaime was shoving him out the door while Asha shouted obscenities at his back and said something about calling the cops next time.

Brienne was still holding the empty glass and staring blankly across the bar when Jaime returned and settled onto the stool in her line of sight. “Now that my Prince Charming act is over with, where’s my prize?”

Brienne blinked twice and refocused on his face, the slight crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the sheer indefinable _warmth_ of him. “What would you like?”

That feral smile that always left her weak in the knees was back.

“Well it doesn’t come in a glass, I can tell you that much.”

She studied him, taking in his earnest expression, colored with the faintest hint of yearning, and smiled. “I get off work at four. Ask me again then.”

His smile was instantly a few watts brighter. “I can’t wait.”


End file.
